BIM representations, created by BIM software, and spreadsheets are common communication means of information exchange between stakeholders in building projects. The BIM representation is involved from inception of the development concept to the maintenance of completed facility. During various stages of the development, the BIM representation is exchanged between various stakeholders and enriched at each phase. The BIM representation is used to convey the design content. In many aspects, the BIM representation can be conveyed in the form of 2D and 3D visual representations. FIG. 1 shows the typical visual representation of building components provided by BIM software. Spreadsheets are used to display various numerical and textual artifacts about the building derived from building components. FIG. 2 illustrates an example of a spreadsheet program displaying the various numerical and textual artifacts.
However, the BIM representation and spreadsheet applications do not function together. Typically, the BIM software and spreadsheet programs are incompatible software applications that are not capable of communicating with one another. Stakeholders interested in both aspects of the information have to open one software system to see the 3D formatted BIM representation and another software system to see spreadsheet format. As a result, relating the asynchronous information from these two distinct resources has been very difficult.
In addition, to analyze and trace the spreadsheet data in the 3D BIM software, which renders validation of spreadsheet information, is virtually impossible. For example, if a user decides to make changes in one format, she needs to manually update the other format. This process increases the possibility of human errors and leads to asynchronous information in different formats. The effect magnifies as the model information matures over different stages resulting in huge costs during the construction and maintenance phases.
Current systems either deal with spreadsheet or BIM representations. Due to this, stakeholders have to use different systems to relate and trace the data. That requires switching between systems in order to comprehend and update the information. The process is cumbersome and hence the comprehension and updating are tedious and error prone. Therefore, there is a need for a single system that can provide spreadsheet applications and BIM applications. Further, there is a need for such a system to automatically synchronize between the spreadsheet and BIM applications. There is a further need for such a system to automatically synchronize the data between the two applications when data is modified or updated utilizing either application.